The Nightmare City Part 1
by Eric VanDerBoom
Summary: Freddy Krueger has escaped from his prison in the Necronomicon, and is plotting to take the Raccoon City survivors back there to kill them...in their dreams. Even with a certain chainsaw/boomstick smart-aleck on their side, will they make it through? Part 1 of 2
1. Fear or Paranoia?

Ch. 1: Fear or Paranoia?

_**Nighttime**__**.**_

_**But there was no way of knowing this in the red-tinted, steaming, sultry boiler room. Other than the hissing that emanated from the machinery, there were no artificial sounds to be heard. The only sign of life was loud, harsh breathing with the edge of someone who didn't know he was doomed.**_

_**The man in question stood in the middle of the room, his midlength brown hair unkempt around his head, his stony handsome face sheened with sweat. He was all alone in this strange, unfamiliar, and unhelpful environment, but he'd dealt with this before. This was nothing compared to the necropolis he'd been through 10 years ago.**_

_**That thought changed in a flash when a shadow leapt out in front of him. It could've been a man, if said man had 4 knives for the right hand's fingers. It cackled a hellish, domineering laugh, and the brown-haired man followed his only instinct: running. **_

"_**What's the matter, Leon? Not undead enough for you?" The voice taunted him with the same low raspy hell that the laugh owned. Leon took it into his mind to run faster, his bare feet pattering against the cold, unyielding floor.**_

_**Then he ran into something. Something that was 10 feet tall, trench coated, fists the size of 2 times his head, and a bald head that looked like a white boulder with a just as expressive face. But here was one difference: the Tyrant was smiling. And when it opened its mouth, a roar didn't come out, but the voice of the shadowy demon did. "Expecting someone else?", it taunted, and the giant started shrinking, claws developing on its right hand fingers. A ratty red and green striped sweater appeared over the trenchcoat, and then replaced it completely. **_

_**But the head and face was what freaked Leon out the most. Although it stayed bald, the head started to develop terrible burn marks that looked like he had once burned in the fires of hell. The tip of his nose started to droop just a bit, so that it curved out instead of staying straight. A wide-brimmed, brown fedora was now topping of the hellish demon-man. "You ain't in Raccoon anymore, city slicker", the voice rattled, and the claws sprung out at Leon, raking through the skin of his right arm, wounding it…**_

…and waking him up with a start. He was still sweat-stained, his bare chest glistening in the early morning sunrise peeking through the window.

"Whew…", Leon breathed out in his shaky deep tenor. "It was only a dream…"

But it was then that he felt something leaking out onto his arm. He turned it around so that he was looking down it, and saw a big splash of blood starting a few inches below his waist and stopping in waves near the elbow. Through the red, he could see 4 gashes of deep scarlet, and knew that the cuts had followed him out of his dream.

_But how is that possible? Where is this coming from?_

Gently and slowly, so as to not wake the still-sleeping, beautiful brunette woman on the other side of the bed, Leon went to the small bathroom across from the bed and grabbed a washcloth from the shower rack. Soaking it with fairly warm water from the sink, he rubbed it against the wounds, the water coming down his arm a pale red as the dried blood washed off. When he was finished, the 4 claw marks still stood out on his arm. No way Angela was gonna let this slide, no way at all.

_Figures. First I have to mow down the undead in Raccoon City, then the parasitic psychos in Spain, more undead in Harvardville, and now…haunted by a nightmare man-demon?_

Strange to him? Somewhat; somehow the undead seemed a lot worse than a dream demon.

Scary, definitely. Leon thought that after Harvardville, he'd never have to look paranormalcy in the face again. Sure, he'd spit in its eye, but he was getting rather tired of it.  
He set back out to his room to get on some street clothes, still trying to get the nightmare man out his mind.

_**Scraping his claws along the metal handrail, the same dream master ran unnaturally fast, catching up with a certain woman in a red dress, swinging her way with a metal grappling hook through the bowels of the boiler room. He could feel her fear emanating off of her figure in waves, although she was taking great care to not show it.**_

_**He knew who got through to her. So he decided to be that person. He could now feel the hair coming out of his head, the fedora disappearing, the burn marks receding, the sweater replaced by a t-shirt and bomber jacket. The clawed glove was still there, just as a surprise. He flicked one of its talons, and a split second later, the grappling hook broke, and the woman fell right into the disguised demon's arms. **_

"_**Leon? Let's get out of here." Her voice was throaty, satiny, almost a purr, and the demon had to take a good effort to not laugh out loud…at least, for now.**_

"_**Sorry, but following a lady's lead isn't my style", he said mockingly in his normal voice, the voice she didn't expect. He raised the claws, ready to strike, but the woman bent herself out of his arms, and kicked him hard in the leg as she landed. **_

_**The demon man groaned in mock pain, but quickly recovered and swiped at her…just as she'd pulled a gun out and fired a shot off. The bullet pinged off of one of the razor fingers, and buried itself in her ankle. She began to fade away; the pain must be waking her up. But just before she dematerialized, she smirked and said, "Bye, Freddy."**_

_**Freddy was left standing in front of where she had been just a moment ago. "How sweet…a woman after my own heart…" He sprang out the blades on his glove, finishing with a high growl, "Hope she likes it dark!" Laughing manically and evilly, the boiler room lost its red color, growing darker, the shapes of buildings, skyscrapers, shops, and houses springing up in its place, the sounds of painful moaning ringing in his ears.**_

_**Freddy couldn't kid himself…he wasn't just in Raccoon City, he practically **__**owned**__** Raccoon City. **_

_**The undead and the survivors of them were his.**_


	2. The Dream Master's Homecoming

Chapter 2  
The Dream Master's Homecoming

The disturbance was just too much for him, and he woke up, sweat all over his handsome, ashen face.

He was a handsome young man, with black hair, an inquisitive-looking face, and a good-enough mannered personality. But underneath it, he owned the power to go into dreams, take control, and even bring others into it. But sometimes it wasn't a good thing.

Even at all of 25 years old, Jacob Johnson had gone through a life that could've made James Bond's life look like that of a bank executive. He had been taken over by Krueger while he was still in the womb of the dream master before him, his own mother. Then she had died at the clawed right hand of the dream demon himself.

He somehow found the need to drag himself out of bed, his t-shirt and sweats still cold and rather moist to the touch. He must've been sweating up a storm! First he'd almost scared the wits out of the Leon character, then tried murdering the lady in the red dress, and now his home turf was a city of the undead, the damned.

'I just don't get it', he said softly. The sound of his breathing and his smooth alto voice were the only sounds in this room…until the visitation. A good spot in front of his bedside table began to wave and distort, until a human body, a woman appeared. She was in a down jacket over a light purple sweatshirt, and a light blue gown. Her face was that of a beautiful woman who had dealt with heavy struggles. Just like how she looked the last time.

"Hey, Nance", Jacob greeted sleepily, giving her his undivided attention. "How's the Beautiful Dream treatin' ya?"

"Paradise as usual", she replied, her somewhat misty, yet serious voice seeming to echo. "But I actually miss the real world sometimes…all except those places that that _thing _is around", she finished full of contempt. If the tone of her voice didn't give it away, the look on her face that suggested a request did.

"And lemme guess: you need me to go the city that these nightmares are taking place at, and at least try to stop them?" He'd hit the nail right on the head, and he regretted it; then again, being the master of all dreams was a heavy burden when you had the Satan of dreams, Freddy Krueger, to fight.

"The city goes by the name of Harvardville. And they've dealt with a real-life nightmare as well", Nancy countered. "There was a mutagenic virus outbreak in their airport that turned its occupants into the living dead."

Jacob considered this for just a moment. Granted, it would be a long, hard drag to have to put up with Freddy again, to say the least. But if the undead had haunted this city before Krueger came onto its dream streets, then defeating him would be a piece of cake.

"Okay, I'll do it", Jacob answered with a note of resigned finality, turning back to Nancy. Noticing she was fading away back to her dream, he said, "And I'll take Freddy down again!"

"Either that, or die trying", Nancy echoed, before she was gone, swept back into the winds of her dream.

Only 20 miles away, another nightmare had struck.

The woman with the red ponytailed hair and gray-brown eyes bolted up in her bed with a start. She looked wildly around, breathing heavily, and then focused on the other side of the bed she shared with the young, brown-haired man.

_Whew…so Steve's still alive._She wiped her forehead with a sigh, her pink pajamas with the same insignia that was on her vest slightly rumpled. Claire Redfield usually didn't scare too easily, but the nightmare she'd just had was freaky beyond anything she'd been through, even…the outbreaks.

_**She was walking through the slightly soaked, steamy, warm room. It seemed so alive, the sounds of barely-working machinery making it sound like the room was breathing...**_

Moving into a seating position on her side of the bed, she looked out at the sunrise just edging over the horizon. Claire had to wonder if the nightmare had anything to do with the car accident her mother suffered when she and Chris were kids.

Suddenly, around the corner, she saw a shadow spring out of the burnt red depths. A shadow with a human shape…with a hat…and knife fingers. It kept coming toward her, an evil laugh emanating from deep within its throat. Something was dripping from the fingers.

They had said that she had died when the car had rammed into a truck trying to pass another car. But Claire then recalled something else: there had been 4 slash marks across her mother's stomach area. They had said that it had gotten slashed by the windshield, but surprisingly, no pieces of it were missing after that crash.

_**"Apparently, Steve-o didn't like his walk on the wild side!" The gravelly voice rang out as the shadow held out another human form, one that looked like…no….no, it wasn't possible…Steve?**_

Could that dream guy have had something to do with her mother's car crash? That might've explained where the claw marks came from.

No, she was just imagining things. But just to be safe…Claire slowly inched the sheets off of her boyfriend's body. His face was still as handsome as ever, his fine-toned chest showing no signs of injury or hurt, his sweatpants barely moist from her sweat. Laughing off the whole affair as just a silly nightmare, Claire left the room, fresh air awaiting her outside.

_**Walking through the streets of his new frontier, Freddy decided that the place couldn't be better. Oh sure, he missed the atmosphere of his good ol' boiler room, but when they came into his world the next time, who knows what would happen.**_

_**"Well, I'll get used to it soon enough", Freddy answered to himself. "Until then, let's see what kind of fun I can have with this place…"**_


	3. Another Secret of Elm Street

Chapter 3  
Another Secret of Elm Street

"Jill? Everything okay in there?"

The cry rang out through the house, instantly sending Jill awake. The old demon that had haunted her throughout her late childhood days had sprung back…with a vengeance. It wasn't enough that she had to put up with that, but she also had to suffer the Spencer estate and Raccoon City.

She shook herself away from the bed sheets and walked out to the kitchen. She'd been sharing the house with Chris ever since Harvardville had officially become known as 'The Survivor City' because almost all the T-virus survivors had moved there.

Chris was leaning against the counter, his Under Armor t-shirt barely keeping his muscles concealed through the dark fabric. He was also wearing sweatpants, which were his usual bed-clothes.

"What was all that screaming about in the bedroom? You were sweating like a pig after a mud fight; you were shaking so much." Jill looked at him in the eye for a brief second, then trailed off from the gaze, replying, "I had a horrible nightmare last night; I could barely get any sleep in." With those words, she could almost feel her eyelids drooping.

"Well, that doesn't explain why it looked like it seemed so real to you. I'd have thought someone was…attacking you from the inside." The last words of Chris's sentence sprang Jill back awake, because in those words, his head was replaced with that of the demon's: the burns, the hat, the eyes that never stopped burning.

"It did seem real to me, Chris." For the first time that he could remember, Jill had lost herself to fear. "It felt like Raccoon City ten times worse…a monster worse than anything in that city. It felt so real…" She trailed off, obviously scared beyond her wits again from trying to recount it.

Chris rubbed his chin in thought, his fingers scraping across the coarse stubble that decorated his chin. Then he looked over at the refrigerator door, asking, "Did it have anything to do with that?"

Jill looked in his direction, and she saw the same thing: an old newspaper clipping, its picture showing a girl jumping rope while 2 other identical girls swung it for her. The caption below it read:

**b1, 2, Freddy's coming for you…3, 4, better lock your door…5, 6, grab your crucifix…7, 8, gonna stay up late…9, 10, never sleep again/b**

Jill looked at the clipping, then back at Chris in wonderment and more fear. "How'd you get that?"

Chris, acting like he didn't hear the question, pressed on. "Did this monster have razor right fingers, a red and green sweater, a dark brown hat, and burn scars all over his face?"

"Yeah, that was him! Those girls in my dream kept calling him Freddy." With one stunned revelation came another. "But how do you know?"

"Because I used to live in Springwood…"

_uiWhen Claire and I were kids, we used to live in that small town of Springwood. Our parents had warned us about Krueger many times, but all the other kids we knew kept telling us that he was long past dead. They said he'd been burnt alive by the angry parents of the kids that he killed. But he kept invading our dreams, for one reason or another. Maybe it was because he wanted revenge for what they did. _

_It also could've been because…my dad had a sister that fell prey to Krueger when she was only 5 years old. She was his last victim before he was brought to justice. But all these years later, I never even expected him to come back. I even had a dream about him, when he was chasing me through the bowels of his boiler room. Before I woke up, I had barely enough time to snag that clipping..._

"Well, that was years ago. Why's he coming back to us now?" Jill's question was answered by Chris wrapping his arms around her, whispering, "I don't know, Jill, but I'd rather die for you than for you to be his slicing meat." Then he silenced her, her soft lips responding by pressing back against his, believing all that she could…

**_"Hmm…quite a noble gesture on your part, Redfield", Freddy snarled as he tore open another undead 'citizen', watching it disappear before its very eyes. "Don't worry, you'll have your chance to die for the cause soon enough. I tried to tell you that making sacrifices was bad for you", he continued, delivering the last with a flourish of his blades and the demonlike smile only he did so well._**


	4. The Medic and The Master

Chapter 4

The Medic and the Master

The day was getting late, the reds and oranges blazing like wildfire across the skyscape. But the skyfire was a beautiful sight for Rebecca Chambers. This meant that it could be the end of another day, a well-deserved rest at the end of reaping the scientific fruits of analyzing the T-virus.

Yes, it was still in existence, but Rebecca, along with her crack team of fellow scientists, took every precaution, even those that may haven't been needed, to make sure the T-virus didn't get out. Putting the end results of the day in the heavy-duty freezer, she turned to the stairs leading up to her home in the heart of the city. On this day, she was dressed in an almost skintight white shirt under a green jacket, and blue pants. And thanks to a white lab jacket, it was all barely stained, which was surprising, considering she put in a work day that'd make any ordinary scientist collapse under the pressure.

The catch was, she was no ordinary scientist. She'd been Raccoon City's S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team's field medic during the outbreak, and she still served as one in Harvardville Contemplating how Raccoon went by so fast, she was broken from her thoughts by a creak in the woodwork.

She grabbed the 9mm Beretta lying behind the doorway at the top of the stairs and moved slowly and stealthily through the somewhat lavish living room…no sign of movement from behind the couch, the recliner, or anywhere else. Making sure it was safe, she headed toward the kitchen.

_Well, compared to 1998, this is nothing, _she mused to herself, still finding it hard to believe that she was only 30 years young; she'd been through a lot. But shoving those feelings aside, she saw that she was no longer alone.

There was a man sitting alone by the counter, his face always seeming like it was searching for something. He looked about Rebecca's age (maybe a little younger), dressed in a dark jacket, a white Beatles t-shirt, and dark blue jeans. His fair black hair hung lightly over his forehead, and he seemed like a trustworthy person, right down to the light blue eyes. Rebecca lay the Beretta down.

"You been having nightmares too?" The light, low alto rang into Rebecca's ears. It sounded considerate, almost sympathetic. But the request that came from his mouth almost made no sense. "What do you mean by nightmares?"

"Freddy, Freddy Krueger; he's been out and about in some of your friends' dreams", the man responded. uNow/u the questions were ringing in her head. She thought Freddy was dead, gone a year before that Kennedy guy left for Spain. "I thought he died a long time ago, fighting some guy named Voorhees."

"We all thought that. Apparently he's back now", he contradicted, sighing heavily. "Sorry for not introducing myself; I'm Jacob Johnson", he said, extending his hand. Rebecca took it, shaking it with a firm grip.

"Rebecca Chambers", he replied. At this, Jacob sucked in a breath, saying, "You were with the S.T.A.R.S, weren't you?" Reading the stunned expression on her face, he said, "It was all over the news even in Springwood, a year before me and my mother moved away."

"Yep; I was Rear Security for Bravo Team", she answered truthfully. "But now that that's out of the way", she continued, still thinking that Jacob was about to harm her, "what's Freddy look like?"

"He's about 6', terribly burnt skin, dark brown fedora, red and green sweater, razor-fingered glove—shall I go on?"

"Whoa, you don't mess around", Rebecca exclaimed, with a slight chuckle. He could see Jacob manage a slight chuckle, no mean feat considering what he'd been through. "Well, what are we supposed to do?"

"Krueger can lose his powers if he's pulled out of a dream and into the real world."

"What's that mean?"

"It means that if you have a grip on him in your dream, and wake up, he'll come with you", Jacob explained.

"Whoa…I didn't think he could be destroyed at all", Rebecca half-whispered. "Still, can't be worse than Raccoon City." She looked back at Jacob, seeing that he was smiling humorously. "Well, you got me there", he replied lightheartedly, and Rebecca could see an unnatural glimmer in her eyes. She then knew, though she had no idea how, that he had some of the same powers.

Jacob caught her looking, and yet when he looked back, neither of them looked away. They'd just met, but Jacob could feel something, not entirely unpleasant, welling up inside him. Rebecca Chambers was quite a pretty woman, with a personality that willed her to do whatever she had to in order to finish whatever dirty work she had. He liked it quite a bit, as he saw Rebecca's face soften a little more.

"I know we just met, but…after all this is over-" "Yeah", Rebecca replied.

"Do you even know what I was gonna ask?", Jacob fired back with a smile. "Were you gonna ask me out?" Rebecca replied with just as mischievous a tone.

"The little lady wins the prize", Jacob appraised, barely noticing that she was within kissing distance. And he was about to lean in, when—

Something screamed in his head. And it wasn't that far away, about in D.C. Jacob sat back up and tilted his head in that general direction. "What is it?", Rebecca inquired.

"That son of a bitch just attacked someone else", Jacob growled. Barely noticing that Rebecca had gotten on her feet, Jacob scrambled for the door, led by Rebecca. _Hopefully, it's not too late!_


	5. It Keeps Going Full Circle

Chapter 5

"It Keeps Going Full Circle Until I'm Nauseous"

The night was young, too young to have been wasted, but Ashley Graham shouldn't have cared. Ever since that kidnapping she'd been in 6 years back, her dad had gotten quite a bit paranoid, trying to keep her at home so it wouldn't happen again. The only reason she'd acquiesced was because there were Secret Service agents everywhere. They could've detained her with a moment's notice if she ever even tried to escape.

Still, there was one of them that she missed…Leon. At this sudden thought, Ashley turned back around and went to her bedside table, where she kept pictures of all the good times she'd had with friends and family. She opened the drawer with a start, looking for that one picture that she'd always considered her favorite. Ashley knew that it was useless to feel this was for Leon, since he was now married to that S.R.T. woman, but she couldn't help it.

As she approached the bottom of the drawer, she heard a voice behind her. " Why have pictures when the real guy's right here?"

She turned around…and saw him. Dark blond hair, bomber jacket, slightly rugged face…his whole being, right there in front of her. "Leon…", she sighed, and she walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his midsection, not caring what his reaction was. But as he followed suit with her, Ashley felt completely whole at that point.

"You know, you should be a little more careful", Leon said, his tone growing sinister with every word. At this Ashley looked up at Leon…but it wasn't him anymore.

The face was of an older man, by about 10 years, but it was horribly burnt, shaded by a dark brown hat. Instead of the bomber jacket and the charcoal shirt that she so desperately wanted to see, it was a tattered red and green striped sweater. When the man spoke, it was in a deep, gravelly tone.

"Sometimes love don't feel like it should", the man whispered, and Ashley could feel something sharp pierce through her skin, through her stomach. Her mouth fell open, and as she looked down to see a razor-fingered glove in her midsection, blood began to pour from her mouth like a small waterfall.

The man tore the glove out of her midsection, then smacked her head down to the ground. Ashley could feel her strength ebbing away from the blood seeping out.

"You know", he said, clinking the blades together, "any sane person would think this old. They think it just keeps going full circle until I get nauseous." Then he kneeled down, next to Ashley's rapidly pale-growing face as he continued.

"But that's not true…not at all", as he stroked the bloody knives down her face. "It turns out there's still a patch of kids I haven't gotten to yet." The shock went straight into Ashley's heart, as she felt and heard no more.

**_bi"That ought to keep them busy for a while", Freddy chuckled, as he walked back to his nightmare city, clinking all the way./b/i_**

President Graham walked up the stairs to say a slightly apologetic good night to his daughter. Already he felt not right about keeping her in the house, as he knew even young adults needed time out.  
"Ashley?" The call went seemingly unheard as he rapped on her door, repeating himself twice more. "Ashley!"

That's when he noticed the small dark puddle under the door, and he rammed himself into it with all the effort he could muster. It went down on the second try. But what he saw chilled him to the bone, and beyond.

His daughter lay on the floor, 4 bloody holes stitched across her stomach, her turtleneck sweater stained with it. The blood had dripped up into her mouth, rapt on a face with an infinitely shocked look, and glazed unseeing eyes. He fell to his knees, covering his face with her mouth. _How could this happen? What did I do to deserve this?_

That's when he fully noticed the 4 holes sewn into her stomach. They looked like razor punctures…or knife stabs. They looked like…like…

No. It wasn't possible. But it was there. "Krueger! Where are you?"

Leon and Angela made it there in record time, but it was too little, too late for Ashley. Already they knew the basic details of what had happened, but they weren't prepared for the gory spectacle that beheld their eyes.

Ashley lay in a puddle of her blood, seeping from the 4 cuts in her stomach, and some from her mouth. Her face looked like she'd been scared out of her wits; it almost seemed like she'd died of fright.

Angela knelt down beside Ashley's body, inspecting the cuts with her sterilized hands, while Leon kneeled beside her, his hand on her shoulder.

"She got stabbed through the stomach wall and a small part of her lungs. The blood from the cuts ended up going into the stomach", she reported finally. Then her hand fell away from the cuts, by her bent knee, her tone more concerned "Do these look familiar to you?"

Leon looked at the stab wounds, noticing that they did indeed look similar. Then he tore off the left sleeve of his leather jacket and looked at the scratches that adorned it. No doubt about it, they were by the same person.

Angela saw the cuts on Leon's arms, and immediately began to prod and rub at them. "How'd you get these?", she asked in amazement. "Leon, if these were closer to the wrist…what happened?"

"Angela…"Leon began. He briefly considered trying to cover it up, but there was no way he could do that to Angela. She was one of those people who could always tell when someone was lying, and he could never lie to Angela.

"You probably won't believe me on this but…somebody's trying…to kill us…in our dreams", Leon whispered shakily, which didn't happen often. But this was really starting to scare him, to the point of Raccoon City vulnerability.

Back in 1998, the only thing he'd done wrong was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not to mention, it was his first day as a Raccoon City cop. He'd gotten through the biohazard okay, but he'd have to carry that frightful memory for the rest of his life.

Angela saw that, and he knew he was telling the truth, even if it sounded completely insane. Even so, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. This couldn't be happening again.

"Let me guess: burnt skin, striped sweater, razor fingers?", she said, her stomach lodging in her throat. At that, Leon looked up in horrific astonishment. "How did you know that?"

"The truth is, Leon… I was one of those Springwood teens at one point in my life. Once those murders started back in '81, my parents ended up divorcing, and my mom moved to Harvardville before she had Curtis. I only moved there after my dad died, because I had nowhere else to go."

Leon moved closer to her, sitting down on the floor where there was no blood, as Angela sat down between his legs, resting her head on his chest. "I'd heard of the stories, but I didn't think Freddy was real."

"Don't worry", Leon whispered reassuringly. "We're going to take him down…that's a promise." And Angela allowed herself to smile, as she laid her head on his chest, feeling his pulse. She let his hand rub her back in a comforting way, but she couldn't escape those nagging thoughts.

**_"Believe me, Leon." Freddy whispered from the inside of the city, feeling the heat of the boiler room encasing the city penetrate him, giving him power. "The day I go down is the day my memory fails to haunt you. If I go down, one of you is coming with me."_**


	6. Trying to Keep it Groovy?

Chapter 6

Trying to Keep It …Groovy?

Now dressed in blue-jeans, her brown shoes, and black t-shirt under her vest, Claire stood on the deck of her and Steve's house. She didn't really know why, but it seemed the only place where she could have some peace to think things over. Looking out over the pre-sunrise cityscape, but not really seeing any of it, her thoughts were still on the nightmare that she'd experienced only mere hours before. So many questions were ringing through her head in the nightmare's wake. How had Freddy come back, and why to her and Steve? What did he want with them?

Suddenly Claire sensed that she wasn't alone on the deck, and she turned around to see Steve standing behind her, in a white t-shirt and brown camo pants. A look of loving concern was on his face, the effect slightly thrown by his orange catlike eyes that the Rebirth Virus left behind. As he walked forward, Claire felt even more at peace, whole by his appearance…but also nervous to Steve's reaction; she had some explaining to do.

"You alright, Claire? You're up awfully early. Was it that nightmare again?"

"No, Steve", Claire answered with a downturn, as Steve took her in his arms. "It wasn't the same one…it was way worse." Steve pushed away just enough to look at her face, their arms still binding each other. "What happened?"  
"There was…this boiler room, and you looked like you did after T-Veronica. But…" Claire trailed off, not wanting to confess the rest. But this was Steve she was talking to; she couldn't lie to him. "…this horribly burnt man had driven these razor-fingers through your head…"

Steve looked down into her eyes, his orange gaze burning through her blue-gray gaze. "Claire…you sure it was me?" Claire nodded, nervousness surging into her system. But Steve's answer did a number on that shakiness.

"It's alright, Claire. I'm here, and I always will be. Besides…I seriously doubt you'll see me dead anytime soon", he said, his tone soothing, his hand resting on her cheek, softly stroking it with his thumb. Claire took comfort in the feeling, but why did it still bug her?

_Well…I suppose I could worry about it later. It's nothing but a nightmare…_

Meanwhile, just outside of the city, someone else was trying to deal with this unexpected reality nightmare.

Ada Wong wasn't really much of a person to have nightmares, and she wondered where it had come from in the first place. Oh sure, if it were about Raccoon or Spain, she would've understood. But this was about something she had never seen before, that man with the burns, the hat, the razors.

_And how did I know his name? It's almost like he was trying to invade my thoughts._

Shaking that thought out of her system, Ada slung herself out of the bed, grabbing the almost sophisticated red tube top and black pants that lay on the floor beside it. Ever since Wesker died, she'd managed to stay with the Organization, who had graciously set her up in Harvardville.

But as soon as she got the pants on, a strange feeling began to overcome her, almost as if a dark power were overtaking her from the inside. Putting a hand to her forehead, Ada managed to reach the bathroom, grabbing the cup that lay beside the sink. But she never reached the lever…

**_...as she suddenly straightened up, a very evil sneer crossing her face. Her beautiful Asian-American features started to pale in color, her brown eyes turning cataract and the pupils becoming blood red. The skin beneath the eyes started to cave in, showing the curves of the bone, and the teeth turned an ugly shade of dark yellow_**

**_Freddy came up from behind her, letting his left arm linger around her shoulders and clinking his finger blades together_**

**_"Ada, baby…you're gonna love being with me. You may even love you new life…as a Deadite", he finished, still reveling the power of turning his enemies into the evil creatures who feared nothing._**

**_With this incredible power, it seemed like nothing would stand in his way._**

Rebecca and Jacob finally managed to show up where his powers were leading, but too late to be of any serious help. The president's daughter was already dead, 4 stab marks stitched across her chest. They also saw Leon and Angela huddled together against the wall, Angela shoving her cell phone away in a hip pocket. Rebecca could almost see how hard it was for Leon to pull his gaze away from the dead body and onto Rebecca and Jacob's forms in the doorway. He softly nudged Angela, who then stood up and roughly embraced her, followed suit by Leon.

"Hey, 'Becca", Leon greeted her, using her old childhood nickname given to her so long ago. "Hey, Leon, Angela", Rebecca nodded back. _iHere we go again, I guess./i_

"Who's he, your boyfriend?" Angela's question was met by a short chuckle by Rebecca, with an identical, yet nervous, one from Jacob. "No, Angela. This is Jacob Johnson. He's here to help us figure out how we're gonna beat Krueger."

"We know: pull him out here and kill him", Leon replied. But it was countered and discarded with a negative head-shaking from Jacob. He then explained, "It won't be enough to just kill him. He was blown up the first time and beheaded the 2nd time, but neither of those occasions were successful. What I'm thinking is that we have to dismember him, and then destroy the dismembered parts beyond repair. You see…those dream demons that granted him his power…they're a powerful form of Deadites."

"You mean those monsters from the Mondarian Book of the Dead – the Necronomicon?" Rebecca's question rang out on almost unbelieving ears…especially Angela's.

"Oh, so now voodoo enters the picture! How can this get any weirder?", she questioned sarcastically. At this Jacob got in her face, saying, "It's all real, and it doesn't just bring evil to life. I should know, because a good friend of mine had to fight them off." At this Leon stepped forward, motioning for Angela to calm down, and then turned to Jacob, asking, "Who's this friend of yours?"

"Ask him yourself", Jacob said with an almost evil smirk. Then he stepped aside to reveal another man standing in the shadows, who stepped forward.

He was a few inches taller than Leon and slightly better built, but it was near-concealed by the loose-fitting blue button-down shirt that clung on his shoulders. A gun holster, on his back was buckled around his chest, holding a 12-gauge double-barrel Remington. Blue jeans clung around his waist and draped around his legs, with the left leg strapping down a chainsaw with a hoseclamp on the bottom of the handle …as if it was meant for the wrist.

Leon could see where it fit as he saw the man's left hand was normal, but the right constructed from some kind of metal gauntlet that, to Leon's eyes, seemed fully functional. But it was the eyes that bored through Leon: ocean blue-green, but they were almost gaunt, as if they'd seem too much that wasn't to be seen. They peered from under dark eyebrows and a head of slightly messy black hair.

They looked through each other, sizing each other up, then smiled at each other and gruffly hugged each other, slapping each other on the back. After about 5 seconds, they stepped back, and Leon said, "It's good to see you again…Ash Williams."

Ash looked back and said, in an equally impressed voice, "You too…Leon Kennedy."


	7. Pulled, Shot, And Cut Into Place

Chapter 7

Pulled, Shot, and Cut Into Place

"Wait…you 2 know each other?"

Leon stood next to Ash, their arms around each other's shoulders in a brotherly embrace, saying, "We do indeed, Jake. This big guy right here helped me with special training while I was going through the basics of the service. While I was there, he told me all about his mis-adventures fighting the spawn of the Necronomicon."

Ash turned to the rest, continuing, "At first, he thought it was bullcrap, but then he realized he wasn't the only one up Hell River without a paddle. What with me having to fight the evil dead 7 times now – twice with Krueger, if you wanted to know - and the Necronomicon having made me immortal afterwards—"

"Wait", Rebecca interrupted. "Immortal? Exactly when were you born?"

"1962."

"And how old are you now?"

"36."

Angela, Jacob, and Rebecca took it all in as it seemed too much to take in at once. Indeed, what was coming out of his mouth did indeed seem like bullcrap, but there could be no other explanation for what was going on. Having encountered the Book of the Dead so many times and won, Ash never completely ended up as one of them. On the contrary, his hard-fighting life had granted him a reward: the power to be immortal.

Just then, another member of the Secret Service, a war-hardened man with a craggy face and wavy black hair, came into the room, reporting, "Sorry, Leon, but the chief's ordered everyone on the White House grounds to stay on the property for at least the night. You and your…", he drifted off, eyeing the character that Ash put off before continuing, "friends…will have to stay the night here."

Ash, flexing his powerful gauntlet hand, was about to step forward and argue their case until the cows came home, but was stopped by a gentle put-out arm from Leon. Still angry, Ash stepped back, not saying anything. Leon then gave his thanks to his fellow agent, who then left the room as 2 medics came in with a body bag.

"Well…what do we do now?" Angela's question rang out in the now almost-hostile environment, as the medics took Ashley's body away. At this Ash looked down at her, replying, "I guess we have to stay here and save the demon-hunting for now, sweet cakes." Then he adopted his tone for picking up chicks, continuing, "What's a pretty lady like you doing in a place like this?" At this, Angela picked up an indignant tone, saying, "How can you afford to try hitting on me at a time like this? Besides, I'm already taken, tough guy."

Leon then stepped behind Angela, wrapping his arms around her, and joked, "Sorry, Ash, but I beat you to her this time."

"Can we stop this already?" Jacob's question forced everyone to stop the frivolity and remind themselves where they were and why. "If anyone comes across Krueger in their dreams, the rest of us will be the first to know. Try to wake each other up if you can, and whoever's dreaming needs to have a hold on Krueger when they awake."

Jacob's requests – almost bordering on orders – made Ash turn to Jacob with a start, demanding, "Look, buddy, I don't give a Deadite's ass how you got here, but when did you start calling the shots?" Jacob then looked Ash straight in the eye, replying in a just-as-angry tone, "Since I became the Dream Master after my mother died. Remember that, Ash-hole?"

At first, Ash had no idea what he was blabbering about, but then he remembered. Of course! How could he forget when Alice Johnson, the Dream Master, sacrificed herself to Freddy to pass her powers on to her son so he could help defeat him?

"I can see where the guy gets his charm", Ash retorted, which was met by sniggers from Leon and Angela, a hand on Jacob's shoulder from Rebecca, and Jacob's eyes rolling. And so the humor and insults stopped, replaced by personal preparations for the hard lag ahead…

**_biAs they drifted off, he could feel the presences of them all come in: the secret agent, the former medic, the SRT lady, not to mention the Dream Master and that chainsaw-wielding wiseass. He wanted nothing more to do with them again. No more would they interfere with his plans. And yet he had to wonder why the other 4 hadn't joined them yet. _**

**_"Ada, darlin'", Freddy called to her, "go and entertain our guests, while I finish the party preparations." No sooner had the words left his mouth than Evil Ada zipped through the skyline of the city. _**

**_"Now…let's see how they go against me this time."_**

His eyes finally opening in the dream world, Ash took a look around where he was, examining his surroundings.

"Well, looks like Toto's not in Kansas anymore", Ash weakly joked. This wasn't the boiler room that Freddy had so loved and lived in to kill his helpless victims. It had the same atmosphere, sure, but the boilers, walkways, and smoke were replaced by skyscrapers, work and office buildings, and ominous moans. He had no idea where he was, but he did know one thing: Ash and the others had a job to do.

Preparing for the worst, Ash grabbed at his prosthetic hand and twisted it off, stuffing it in an all-too-secure pouch on his holster. He then pulled the heavy chainsaw out of its holster, attaching its hoseclamp onto the wrist of his right arm.  
"Groovy", Ash said in an unnaturally deep voice. He then began to walk down the street that he was on, looking around at every building, fearful that Krueger might jump out at him from nowhere and everywhere at once. As it turned out, it wasn't long before he was jumped, but not by Krueger.

A rotted, undead human shambled out from a dark corner to greet him, rotting from a thousand places, seeping blood and pus, and wearing a raggy shirt with pants to match. It was too far gone to determine if it was male or female, but Ash didn't care. What he did manage to notice was that it moved much too slow to be a Deadite. iNo chainsaw needed here, it's only a zombie. But even so../i

He grabbed the shotgun from its holster on its back, and, cocking it with his good hand and then catching the stock around the trigger area, took careful aim at the zombie's head, and squeezed. The ol' double barrel boomstick belched fire as the zombie's head was obliterated with a mighty boom. The body crumpled as the head exploded like an old pumpkin meeting the ground.

But the moaning never stopped. On the contrary, they seemed to be getting louder and louder by the second. Ash turned around to see that in the time it had taken to kill the solitary zombie, dozens more had met to take him down. Holstering the shotgun and grabbing the chainsaw's starter cord in one swift motion, Ash yanked on the cord, satisfied to hear the chainsaw thrumming on his wrist, to see the chain moving around the blade.

"All right…come get some", Ash whispered, and with a yell, dove into the crowd, swinging his chainsaw wildly into the flay. Steel met with rotting skin everywhere as arms, legs, heads, and blood went flying all around Ash, yet he not once managed to get bitten or scratched, even as he went insane on them. As more of them closed in on him, he unholstered his Remington once again, shooting at one side of the crowd as the chainsaw made mincemeat out of the other side. Pump, cut, shoot, pump, shoot, cut…the cycle went on in Ash's head as he kept on.

In about 20 minutes, which could've been 20 years, it was over, Ash covered in sweat and blood as he panted. But his work wasn't done yet; a female scream rang out in the city of the damned dead, loud and clear. Ash ran toward the scream, hoping it wasn't too late.


	8. Zombies and Deadites andWhat?

Chapter 8

Zombies and Deadites and…?

_Why do I have to be here again of all places? Krueger…you son of a bi-_

The thought cut off suddenly in Jill's head as she looked all around her, unable to run through any of the crowds for fear of becoming one of them. She couldn't afford that to even attempt to happen again. But there was nothing she could do. She had a combat knife, sure, but what good would that do with zombies on all sides?

Then she heard a vile screeching noise above her. Jill looked up with a start, seeing many dark, harpy-like creatures flying around the crowds. The zombies paid no attention as they called in voices like fingernails on a chalkboard, "We'll swallow your soul! We'll swallow your soul!" Jill's gaze then returned to the combat knife she held in her hand. It was her only chance to take one of them with her. She hurled it at one of the strange creatures, nailing it straight in the eye with a triumphant laugh. But it soon turned to a scream of horror as the harpy's eye spit it out like a mouth spit out sunflower seeds.

Both of the flying creatures dive-bombed toward her as the zombies closed in—

-only to explode in a bloody mess as a seemingly giant boom sounded, followed by the sound of a motorized tool running. Through the rotting haze, she could make out blood and zombie parts flying as someone – Jill couldn't tell if it was male or female at this point – buzzed through them with what looked like a chainsaw, shooting at a few with a double-barreled Remington.

The buzzing got closer, and Jill, shaking with relief as a glimmer of hope showed up on the other end of the tunnel, could now tell that her savior was a male…and a rather good-looking one, at that. He was built almost as strong as Chris, and about as tall. He had unkempt black hair, a somewhat-grizzled face, and was wearing a blue button-down with jeans to match. Both of these were red with the blood of zombies and those creatures, and he was wearing a back holster buckled around his pecs. His left hand held the shotgun, while his right was replaced with a very powerful chainsaw.

"Hey! Over here! Get me out of here!" Normally Jill wouldn't have needed help, but she had nothing to defend herself with; this wasn't her territory anymore. He managed to see her through the crowd with blue-green eyes that were bright, but gaunt at the same time, and continued with the cutting and shooting of the zombie crowd. In another 10 minutes that seemed like eternity, it was all over.

It was only then that the man turned to Jill, his eyes drilling into hers.

"Lady, I'm gonna have to ask you to return to your home", he said in an idiosyncratic, somewhat deep voice.

"Go home, my ass", Jill replied in indignantly. "I'm in this just as much as you, buddy. Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Jill Valentine, BSAA, former S.T.A.R.S. member, wants to know." The words had a clear effect on him, but not what she was hoping. She thought he'd back down and apologize, but that wasn't what came.

"Well, hello, Ms. Fancy-Pants", the man retorted. "Take it from Ash, if you're leading anything right now, it's jack and shit…and Jack left town."

Just then, another harpy-like abomination came flying down with a cry of "I'll swallow your soul!" The man who called himself Ash seemingly had no idea it was coming, either. Jill glanced up to signal it out to him, but by that time, he had his shotgun, over his shoulder, pointed behind him right in its face, and said, "Swallow i_this_/i." With a shot from the Remington, the harpy's face was turned into nothing but a bloody mush.

Twirling the shotgun around his hand a few times, then holstering it back, Ash said, "Look, I don't think now's the time for a power struggle. We've got bigger problems going on here." "So I've noticed", Jill replied, looking around. "I just ended up here after me and Chris fell asleep, we got separated after we got here, and…" She trailed off, not daring to think negative anymore.

"You love him, don't you?" The comment made Jill turn back to Ash with a smirk. "Maybe I do, smart guy. What makes you think that?"

"Well, the way you were talking about him, baby cakes", Ash replied. Jill had to admit, this guy had nerve, but now it was her turn to call it off.

"Sorry if you're lonely and available…Ash…but like you said, we've got bigger problems here." And together they headed off into the dark.

Keeping as close to Rebecca Chambers as he possibly could be, Jacob walked on with her right next to him. Granted, he knew she'd survived Raccoon City, but this was a whole new world for her…even if it had been transformed into Raccoon City. There were still unknown…ithings/i out there that she hadn't even dreamed of.

Hearing the ever distant moans of zombies, as well as distant gunshots and buzzing that could've only been Ash-hole (that was his name for him), Jacob could only hope everyone else was doing alright.

It was then that his gaze turned to Rebecca, seeing her shake but trying desperately hard not to show it. Obviously she thought that she'd never go through this horror ever again. Jacob, in an attempt to comfort her, put his left arm gently around her shivering shoulders. She look at the hand that hung loosely around her neck, and gently held it with her own right hand, wrapping her other arm around him.

Jacob didn't let himself be surprised; even though she was 5 years his senior, he felt that they needed to stick by each other equally. "It'll be alright, Rebecca. When it's your dream, you're in control."

"I'm not worried about Krueger coming after me, Jacob", Rebecca answered back, and Jacob stopped his pace, easily stopping Rebecca as well. They looked into each other's eyes, mahogany looking down into forest green, and Jacob asked, "What are you afraid of, Rebecca?" At this she inched a bit closer, he feeling her heartbeat against his chest, and answered.

"I'm hoping that our friends will survive…and…" "I know", Jacob whispered, and they head each other so close, it felt like they were trying to meld into one another. But she wasn't planning on being stopped, as she looked back up at him and finished, "…and I'm afraid that I'll lose you in the process." At this a slightly stunned expression, slightly intensified by Rebecca's slender, warm hand on his cheek, walked across Jacob's face. He could only go with what was happening as Rebecca's face moved in.

As her lips barely came against his at first, he could only feel a sense of dangerous, yet wonderful, sereneness at what was happening, and he returned the kiss with full-on force, encoiling her in both of his arms this time. _If only this wasn't a dream…and yet, everything that happens in one follows you out_, he thought as they both took a short breath before their lips met once again.

Yet it had barely started again, when they heard the deep cackle that both of them hated so much. They broke off, but still in each others' arms, and looked around nervously. At first Jacob couldn't see anything, but then he saw his trademark: 4 talons were curved around a nearby 'lamppost' as Freddy stalked out from behind it, his red and green sweater seeming to glimmer from the ghoulish light twenty-odd feet away. Rebecca finally let go of Jacob, and they both tensed, ready for anything.

"What a touching moment we have here. Ain't that right, Jacob?"

"Damn straight. Now why don't you leave before the audience gets ticked off?"

"I was just about to tell you the same thing", Freddy retorted, and the shadow he cast off lengthened until it went upright, right in front of them. Shadow-Freddy's claw dived for them, but they both jumped away, Rebecca landing in a heap on the street.

"How 'bout I show you what real dream power can do?" Jacob's call-out had gone down an octave, up an octave…**everywhere and nowhere at once** as Freddy's claws on his glove elongated, curved, wrapped around its owner, so tight he couldn't get out. Krueger struggled to free himself from his claws, but they refused to budge from their coiled position.

"Now", Rebecca said as she got up and walked toward Krueger, "that's what I call wrapped up." Jacob looked down at her, and, smiling warm-heartedly, said, "Horrible pun, Rebecca."

"Like you could do better", she retorted.


	9. Back to Reality, but Not to Safety

Chapter 9

Back to the Real World…but Not to Safety

But what they didn't know was that it was all too easy.

**_Hopefully, they can't read my killer mind, Freddy thought. "What are you gonna do with me?", he asked, trying to keep his tone as worried as possible, fighting an urge not to laugh out loud at their gullibility._**

**_"What we should've done a long time ago, Krueger", another familiar voice said, as more people began to appear beside Johnson and Chambers, and the one who spoke- he should've known._**

**_He still had his chainsaw over his wrist, the old shotgun in his hand, and that smart-aleck attitude that ticked him off so much._**

**_"Good to see you too, Ash-hole. How's that hunt for the book treating you?" Freddy's retort rang out on deaf ears as he grabbed hold of him on one side, while an unfamiliar woman in a BSAA uniform grabbed him on the other. "Wakey, Jakey", she said in another horrible pun as they went through the tunnel..._**

…and woke up back in the White House room. Leon, hearing the noise, snapped out of it big-time, hand reaching for his gun. Ever since his last encounter with Krueger, he hadn't been able to sleep heavily enough to dream. But what he saw made him almost refuse to believe that this was real.

Ash was now in a sitting position on the floor, with Rebecca and Jacob connected at the hip a couple inches away. But now they'd brought 2 people with them: Jill Valentine, whom Leon didn't have the first clue how she got there. She had been knocked out, but Leon didn't know that either. And, o'course…

"Freddy…" The name was barely out of his mouth, before Krueger snapped up to his full height. Leon brought the handgun up to aim, and squeezed the trigger, a cough of fire sending a piece of death metal into Krueger's brain.

But it still wasn't enough. Krueger's red eyes looked up toward his own forehead, and he took his burnt, clawless hand, and reached for the bullet, his hand melding with his forehead. At this, everyone in the room, excepting Ash, looked on in frightened wonderment. Leon looked first to Krueger, who flicked the useless bulled down to the floor with a smirk, to Ash, who just looked on with a complexion of pure hatred.

"The Necronomicon never let me go, bitches", Freddy retorted, as his clawed hand swiped out for Rebecca. "Die, you little-!" But what he didn't count on was Jacob standing in front of her, and instead, the claw raked across his upheld wrist, a cry escaping his lips.

Ash revved up his chainsaw, bringing it down to slice Freddy up—

-but his claws, now streamed with blood, met with the chain and made the chainsaw stall. For almost too long. But keeping with what opportunity he had left, Ash unholstered his boomstick and gripped it by the barrel, smacking Krueger across the gut with it, the claws releasing from the chain, letting it run smoothly. Ash flipped the boomstick back to shooting position—

-but 2 of the bloody talons stuffed themselves down the barrels. Ash, a stunned look on his face, looked down at the barrels, then back to Freddy, an evil smirk on his face. Jacob and Rebecca began to lunge at Freddy, but he ripped their grips from his arm and swatted them away with almost inhuman strength. This same result met with Angela after she tried tackling him with all the desperate strength of a linebacker for the Pittsburg Steelers. Noticing that Ash was trying to get away in the meantime, Freddy grabbed Ash's soaked blue shirt and pulled him close with a demonic whisper…

"This is my world now, goody little 2-shoes."

At the last, the evil smirk grew wider, broader, Freddy's remaining, rotting teeth transforming into a full set of jagged demon jaws. His eyes even took on a demon-like shape, as fire seemed to burn from within them. The burns seemed to grow worse on Freddy's face, almost showing the bone underneath. Freddy's claws still remained in the barrels, but he ripped them out with such recoil that ripped Ash from Freddy's grasp and flung him to the wall. But the fight wasn't completely out of him yet.

"Whoa, Freddy…were you born that ugly?" The exclamation left Ash's mouth as Leon quietly crept up from behind Freddy, but just as he was about to take aim, he noticed an irregular rectangle-shaped mound underneath Freddy's tattered sweater. Curious, Leon drew the gun, forced it into the mound, and pulled the trigger twice. Immediately after that, something no one expected took place there…

Freddy's back bent inward as his head flew back with a shriek of pain. But it wasn't just him doing it. Joining him was a chorus of demonic voices that seemed to Leon as if they were coming from the mound on his back.

_Wait.._._ Freddy said that the Necronomicon never let him go. Could that be it, stuck on his back? _But just as he was about to tell the others, Freddy turned around to Leon and smacked him to another wall with his claws, leaving 4 shallow marks in Leon's left side, slightly below his ribs. Amazingly, they weren't life-threatening, but they'd hurt like a son of a bitch. Leon, looking like he was holding up the wall with all the pain, stood himself up…but too late. Freddy was gone, and Leon thought he could almost see the waves in the air where Freddy once stood.

"Where'd he go! Where the hell is he?" The scream went out amidst everyone else's unknowing shrugs, but Leon noticed that Ash and Jacob were looking at each other, and then nodding. This made him suspicious, not knowing what these 2 knew already.

The suspicions were about to rise on Leon's lips, but Rebecca was already there. "What are you 2 thinking?"Angela's curious gaze, brought on by Rebecca's inquiry, was followed by Leon's visible qualms. What could Jacob and Ash be up to?

"To answer Leon's question, where do you think Krueger would go that would get the most rise for him? That would send your mind reeling with fear and anger?" At first it was inconceivable to Leon, Rebecca, and Angela to comprehend. There was no way he could've gone back there. And yet…it seemed to make perfect sense.

"Of freaking course", Rebecca finally whispered, as what she was thinking was paralleled with everyone else as they said, with one voice…

"Raccoon City."

Leon could almost feel the gauntness in his face coming back as he grabbed Angela's hand and looked out toward the direction of the hell on earth he'd been through. Rebecca turned to Jacob as she held on to him, Jacob following suit. Ash looked down at the floor, wondering what they were going to do about this whole fiasco, when he noticed that Jill was coming back around. Unscrewing the chainsaw from his nub and replacing it with his gauntlet hand, he knelt down beside Jill.

"You okay, Jill?" She looked up at her with a determined, yet quite scared gaze, and nimbly wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in her shoulder. Ash could just barely hear her whisper of "I've been better." Jill pushed herself back and let Ash pull her to her feet, as Jacob looked out in a different direction from Leon. Everyone noticed the change in his complexion, and everyone turned to him wondering what he was feeling.

"What's going on, Jacob?" Jacob turned to Angela in response to her question, as he answered, "Krueger's trying to kill someone else now. It feels like the victim's a former S.T.A.R.S. member from Raccoon City. He's putting up a good fight…" He trailed off for a second, noticing Jill's frightful, yet hopeful, eyes looking at him. Obviously, she knew the guy in question.

Jacob delivered the last, shattering all but a shard of hope from Jill.

"…but it feels like Krueger's winning."


	10. Next Stop: City of the Damned

Chapter 10

Next Stop: City of the Damned

The bullets went flying all through the house on the outskirts of Harvardville. The bullets were met with the swipes of 4 blades knifing through the air like a blowtorch through butter. It almost seemed as if these 2 weapons were having a conversation: the 9mm rounds calling the bladed hand out, and the claws responding with more than the bullets expected.

None of this mattered to Chris at the time. All he wanted was Krueger out of his house and in pieces. The S.T.A.R.S.-issue Beretta, that had been with him ever since he'd gotten out of the Spencer estate, but not when he went out to Rockfort Island, was the only immediate weapon he had on hand to beat the dream demon. Even so, Chris had no idea how he broke out into the real world with his powers intact, or how he was even able to. All Chris knew was that Krueger had come back to kill him, and he shouldn't let happen.

Another shot rang out from the Samurai Edge's barrel, which was swiped away with lightning-fast speed by the steel claws of Krueger's hand. "That little pop-gun of yours ain't gonna help you any longer, Redfield", he taunted in that ungodly snarl of his. It was then that Chris noticed that Krueger had gotten worse in the years: his skin was dark-red, his teeth razor sharp, and his eyes blood-scarlet in hue. He was no longer a master of the nightmare, he was an absolute _demon._

The Beretta had fired its last bullet. Quickly checking the magazine and finding no remaining bullets, he threw it off to the side, then remembering that his old Bowie knife lay in the holster under his shirt. Chris grabbed for it under his green Under Armor shirt—

- just as Krueger swiped his shoulder, 4 cut marks raking down and stopping midway to the elbow. Chris reached for his shoulder with his left arm, a look of pain crossing his face as a gasp escaped his mouth.

But Krueger wasn't done yet.

Chris looked up to see the claws reaching for his face. Feinting toward the ground, Chris's right hand came away with the knife in its grasp as he delivered a roundhouse kick, centering his weight as the right leg chopped for Krueger's legs—

-but they never made contact, as Krueger jumped toward Chris, avoiding the kick that may have brought him down. Claws spread wide and poised to the striking point, Chris could hear the air whooshing past Krueger as he jumped.

Just as the thought went through his mind, the clawed arm swiped down toward Chris. He rolled to the left, away from the talons as they buried themselves in the floor. He could hear the sharp ishhnnk/i as they buried themselves in the tile, then the mortar underneath. Seizing the opportunity, Chris changed his hold on the knife and buried it in Krueger's shoulder, driving the blade through skin and muscle before the tip made contact with the bone of the shoulder. A small glimpse of –what Chris thought it was—agony crossed Krueger's burnt, wasted face. But it didn't stay there, quickly being replaced by a demonic grin and just as hellish laughter, as Krueger's left arm reached for the knife and swiftly pulled it out, the cut healing faster than Chris could comprehend, almost as if the stab had never existed in the first place.

Still with the satanic smirk on his face, Krueger launched the Bowie knife straight for Chris's heart. Chris launched himself up, but he was a bit too slow this time, as the knife buried itself in its back, right behind where the heart would be. Shock began to spread through Chris's body as the life, slowly and painfully, eased out of it. His vision doubled, tripled, and went misty as Krueger walked up to him with a calmly ironic look on his face. It remained there as one slick, black shoe-clad foot launched itself at Chris's head, and the recoil was enough to push the knife a centimeter deeper into his body. But it was enough.

"I think you've got the point", Krueger cracked as he stepped over Chris's body, leaving him to die in his own scarlet pool. All those long, hard years of fighting against the darkest powers, had seemingly been all for nothing in the end.

Christopher Redfield was no more.

Thankfully, Chris's house in Harvardville wasn't horribly far from the nation's capital, and Ash's Oldsmobile Delta 88 made it there in record time. For looking quite old, beat up, going through 3 attacks by the evil dead – one of them including a crash landing - the car still ran like it was still new, with a speed that exceeded its original specifications.

Jill allowed herself to be thankful for that, but she wouldn't allow herself to feel completely safe until she knew that Chris was alright. But just before the Delta managed to pull up into the driveway, Jill caught a look at the Dream Master – Jacob's – face, and it didn't look hopeful, especially when he shook his head when he saw Jill.

_ I've gotta keep my hopes up; Chris is a fighter, and he may come out beat up, but… I'm sure he'll survive._

As soon as Ash smacked on the brakes, Jill threw open the door of the Olds and barged through Chris's front door, not waiting for the others. "Chris! CHRIS!" The call rang out through the walls, the rooms, up the stairs of the house, but it went unanswered. When nothing but the almost dead silence of the upper-middle-class house greeted her with a reply, Jill racked the recesses of her mind in exhaust to find some sort of explanation of why Chris wasn't there.

_Maybe he's at the Emmy's Diner in Harvardville, or he got called for a B.S.A.A. excursion at the last minute and wasn't able to tell me…he can't be dead…can he? _

Fighting the tears that were working their way up to her sapphire eyes, Jill looked through every front room, from the living room to their bedroom. She saw no sign of him, but he did see that the top of the bedside table, where he usually set his Beretta, was now empty. Mentally storing that tidbit of information, Jill went to the kitchen.

But she wasn't alone. Ash was standing in the entryway of the kitchen, a stony look on his face. Jacob was holding Rebecca in his arms a few feet away, looking up toward the ceiling. Angela was sitting on the couch another few feet away, her face in her hands, Leon holding her in his arms. All of this put together a post-funeral picture for Jill, but she wasn't ready to give up hope just yet.

Jill made a path for the kitchen as Ash begrudgingly let her through. She could she why he was so uneasy as the horrifying sight lay in front of Jill's eyes.

Chris Redfield was lying of the left side of his back, a pool of deep scarlet blossoming around his limp, lifeless body. His eyes, normally the brightest shade of green, were now dull with a surprised look in them, mouth agape. Motioning around him, Jill could see why the pool formed: Chris had died hard, had died trying to live.

On his muscular right arm were 4 parallel cuts that extended themselves down before stopping in the middle of the biceps and triceps. A pit in the tile, caused by the same knifes that cut through his skin, lay in a powdery mess next to Chris. But what Jill saw as the ultimate cause of his death was the crown jewel of the unspeakable carnage.

His old Bowie combat knife, the same weapon that had been with him since the first T-virus outbreak, lay embedded in his back, the hilt sticking out at an unnatural angle. She didn't need a doctor's prognosis; Jill knew that this must've been the killing wound. She could almost see the irony behind it: the most beloved weapon had turned against its wielder in the last battle against evil.

And yet, she couldn't bring herself to believe it: Chris Redfield, the man who she had fought by for all these years, her saving grace against the iron clutches of Albert Wesker, was gone for good.

She fell to her knees, her jeans soaking up his blood as she collapsed on Chris's body and cried her eyes out until she thought they'd burst apart from all the pain and sorrow. _Why, Krueger…WHY?_

She buried her face into part of Chris's shoulder that was still clothed, hoping against hope that he'd come back to life just so she could hear his voice one last time.

Then Jill felt a warm, smooth, strong hand on her left shoulder. Jill, lifting her slightly reddened eyes, looked at the hand to see that it was very slightly dirty, and followed the arm until she was looking at Ash's face. Instead of the stony lonesome look that she had seen earlier, it was now adorned with a look of saddened compassion and understanding at what had happened. Even the gaunt eyes seemed to be decorated with this same feeling. She lifted herself away from Chris's body, encoiling her arms around Ash, more tears flowing onto his shoulder, as she felt Ash's chin lightly resting on the top of her head. Jill, even though she barely knew him, took comfort in the fact that he was trying to console her, as she let the tears keep flowing.

"I know, kid…I know", Ash whispered as his hand of flesh tenderly stroked Jill's back for a while, his gauntlet hand resting a few inches above the back of her waist. As he did, she gently pushed herself a couple of inches away from him to look into his blue-green eyes. They seemed to shine with an almost unearthly bright light, even as they stood up, still in each other's arms.

At the sound of a short scuffle, they turned toward the entryway to see the rest of the gang standing there, waiting patiently for them to compose themselves. When they showed that they did, Ash's flesh hand now in Jill's' right in a considerate manner, Jacob looked at them and said, "Alright, guys, no more grieving…cause we've got a dream demon to take down."

At this, they remembered the mission at hand, and they all headed out for Ash's Delta. But Jill, still with a grip on Ash's fingers, pulled him back. "What's up, Jill?" She said nothing, but crouched down beside Chris one last time and pulled the Bowie knife out of his back, wiping the blood off of it with a gauze pad she had in her back pocket. She then stuffed the knife in a hip pouch – she'd had her equipment with her for some time – and looked down at Chris as she stood back up.

"I'll make him pay for what he's done, Chris." At her determined voice, the grip on her hand Ash hand squeezed once so that he got her attention. They looked into each other's eyes for another moment before leaving as Ash amended…

"We'll make him pay, Jill…we ALL will."


	11. Just Say No to Dreaming and Driving

Chapter 11

Just Say No to Dreaming and Driving

**_The ruins of the city lay out before his demonic gaze. To him, there was nothing more beautiful than this: the ill-fated city, collapsed onto itself in the biggest of 3 adjoining craters, was once again ready for hell to strike. _**

**_Freddy missed having this place restored to all its hellish glory in his dreams. Using the city as his realm helped to expose their weaknesses, and now he had them traumatized, almost to the point of no return. And now he had to leave it, all part of his master plan. They couldn't have known that he planned to unleash the army of hell over the earth: the T-virus monsters, the Deadites, and the demons of his own making. All thanks to the Necronomicon that, conveniently enough, lay on his back, compounding his power._**

**_Wait, who was he kidding? Thanks to him, the dreams had crossed over into reality. It would take too long to rebuild the city; by the time he was half done, they'd be on him and find out how to stop him. It seemed like they already had found out, so he'd have to be careful. Getting his bearings by expanding his power around him, he felt the presence of an old and derelict facility…a worn Umbrella bunker built to study the after effects of the outbreak._**

**_"Perfect…let's see that chainsawed bastard and his zombie hunters get past this", Freddy growled, as he teleported himself into the facility, and transformed it. It became the underground that had haunted the brainless cop and his biker-bitch friend ever since they'd escaped. They'd have no idea what they were up against now. _**

**_"It's time to let the nightmare loose on the world."_**

Nighttime had fallen like a dense fog on the world, the moon shining down in all its dreamy, yet nightmarish, glory. Claire checked her watch, stunned at the fact that it was still so early, only around 4:00. Either the effects of late autumn were starting to kick in sooner than usual, or there was something very wrong going on.

The latter thought didn't seem so far-fetched when Steve came back out to the deck, Claire's cell phone in his hand. "It's Leon, Claire…and it doesn't sound too good." Her thoughts and emotions near to the point of running wild, and trying not to show it, Claire took the phone from Steve and put it to her ear. Steve, not wanting anything else bad to happen, stood by Claire in preparation of what was coming.

"Hello?", Claire asked.

"Hey, Claire", the familiar mid-tenor voice of Leon replied over the phone.

"What's going on?"

"Well, I don't know how to tell you this, but-"

"Let me guess: is Freddy Krueger back again?"  
There was a very pregnant silence at the other end of the line. Claire could almost see Leon's rugged face as she heard a deep breath, followed by the answer she didn't want to hear: "Yep."  
"Who'd he get this time?"

"Ashley Graham—"

"The president's daughter?" Claire remembered her; Leon had talked about Ashley quite a bit. From what Claire understood, Ashley could barely hold her head down in a crisis, couldn't handle any of it by herself, but Leon had said it wasn't her fault.

"Yep", Leon sighed heavily, "…and…your brother."

Claire very nearly dropped the phone, a shocked expression on her face. She regained her grasp on the device, not believing what she'd just heard. There was no way it could be true: her big brother, the only family she had left (besides Steve, of course), was gone after all these years.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm afraid so, Claire", Leon replied, his voice heavy with sadness and understanding. "He put up a good fight against Krueger, but he got Chris in the end…with his own knife." Before Claire could ask how, Leon continued, "We don't know why, but somehow he can blur the lines that separate dreams from reality, all thanks to that damn Necronomicon."

"You mean the Kandarian Book of the Dead? I thought it got lost a few years back; your mentor in the Secret Service told me about that, remember?"

"Unfortunately, Ash told us that Krueger got a hold of it and bound its powers to himself. Now Freddy's waiting for us in the ruins of Raccoon City. "

Claire understood where this was all going, and she knew what had to be done. She looked at Steve, mouthing, "Krueger's in Raccoon", then went back to the phone. "Besides Ash, who else is there with you, Leon?"

Leon replied, "There's Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, Angela, and Jacob Johnson." At the last name, Claire asked, "Johnson…is he related to Alice Johnson?  
"Son and mother; they've both fought against Krueger at some point. So…you ready to go back?"

Claire looked at Steve, who wore a determined look on his boyishly handsome face. Obviously he was ready to give some payback for what the Umbrella assholes had done to him; getting Krueger was just a bonus for him.

"We'll be there in a few. Save us a few demon scraps."

At this, she heard Leon chuckle at the other end, his first laugh in quite some time. "We'll try not to kill him too horribly, but with Ash's chainsaw here, that might be tough."

Claire looked up and shook her head with a laugh, before a gritty, angry look came to her face at what Krueger had done to her. "See you in a bit, Leon." She closed her cell phone as Steve brought out his 1970 Dodge Charger from the garage.  
"You ready, Claire?" Steve asked, as she barreled into the car through the open window. She then opened the glove compartment, digging out a Glock 17 with a few loaded magazines. She loaded one into the handgun, calm rage set into her face.

"Steve…I was born ready", she answered grittily, as the car pulled away…

Ash maneuvered the Olds steadily through the near-empty interstate that went through hilly countryside, a sight that normally would've looked beautiful had they not been on the mission on their nightmares. Tension was running high through the whole car as his passengers mentally prepared themselves for what was going to happen. Ash spared a quick glance behind him and to his side, seeing Jacob focusing ahead with a battle-ready look in his eyes, Rebecca next to him as she locked and loaded her Beretta. Leon was in the right side of the back seat with Angela, helping her to put her S.R.T. –issued machine gun in order.

Then Ash looked behind his left shoulder this time, seeing Jill look out the side window, a heartrendingly – dogged complexion holding on her beautiful face, framed by the mix of brunette hair with blond tips. The sight of her, to Ash, gave the look of a woman who carried herself through a living hell on earth and came out smelling like roses, guns still ablaze. Ash couldn't help but stare for a little while longer, marveling at how she carried herself through the lurid anguish that had plagued her for so long. And yet, none of that seemed to have any effect on her sanity or her fighting spirit.

He could see that Jill caught him staring, and looked back at Ash, seeing her ready to smack him out of his stupor. But she couldn't bring herself to, her eyes locked on the almost awed look on his face. His eyes now took on an almost soft quality, his mouth shut somewhat tight in a show of hardened acceptance. His windswept black hair framed his complexion just enough to give him a ruggedly striking look that, like Jill, seemed to conceal all the battle hardened years. They locked their gazes against each others' for what seemed like a lifetime, seeing the qualities that they'd missed seeing in each other in the quirks of the living nightmare.

All the ladies that Ash had met over the years hadn't seemed like what he thought of as the 'beautiful warrior' type, and he may have come across as somewhat chauvinistic, but he knew that was only because of all this time-

"Ash, look out!" He gave Jill a quick wink and turned his look back to the road—

-as a red and green striped car drove at - what looked like - full speed straight toward them.

Grabbing a better hold on the steering wheel, Ash swerved away from the car, barely catching a glimpse of a skull-white, once beautiful, female face, a haircut rather like Linda's was, and the top part of an old-looking red cocktail dress.

The Olds took a sharp turn to the left so that it was now facing the way they came, the 6 people in the car very taken aback, but with guns at the ready. "Who the hell was that?"

In response to Jacob's question, Angela replied, "Ada?" She looked at Leon, who nodded grimly, responding with "Yep…but she's turned into one of them."

"Heh….looks like Freddy finally found the girl of his dreams", Ash retorted, in one of his one-liner moments. All these years of fighting for his life against the spirits of hell had left him a bit more cynical, so this came as no surprise.

"What do we do?", Rebecca asked, in a slightly worried tone, her gaze on Ash. He turned to face Leon, Angela, and Jill in the back seat, telling them as he turned, "Load your guns, people…we're gonna kill us a she-bitch." This was meant by subsequent cocking of a handgun, submachine gun and loading of Ash's boomstick after he retrieved it from the floor of the backseat.

Leon, however, was rather diffident, because he and Ada had crossed paths so many times, having an almost demure relationship between them.

"Ash", Leon began, but Angela quickly cut him off with, "There's nothing more we can do for her, Leon. If she comes back afterwards she comes back, but if not…" She trailed off; leaving Leon's thoughts settled over what had to be done. Leon let a round into the chamber, ready to destroy the evil that had taken so many people's lives, some who didn't deserve it.

Ash and Rebecca leaned out the front windows of the car, while Leon and Jill leaned out the back, pointing their guns at the car, which was now bulleting back toward them. "Wait for it…", Leon said, scarcely heard, which was followed by Ash's repetition of "Wait for it…"

The car was only a hundred feet away, the now-dead face of Ada set in a very grotesque grin.

"NOW!" At the yell, Ash's boot-clad foot rammed on the accelerator pedal, and the back wheels of the Delta 88 smoked before gripping on the pavement, and propelling the car toward the Freddy-mobile. As the 2 cars approached each other, all of the guns – still aimed at the car from the open windows of the Olds - fired away at the nightmare machine, riddling the framework, windshield and windows, upholstery, and even Ada's now corpselike figure. And yet, the car kept speeding on, before each of the vehicles turned again towards each other.  
"Jacob, take the wheel", Ash demanded as he grabbed his chainsaw from above the dashboard and attached it once again to his right wrist, shoving his mechanical hand in the back holster's pouch. "What are you going to do, Ashley?"

At the mention of his full name, Ash turned toward Jacob with an annoyed look on his face, saying, "Okay, first off…don't call me Ashley. 2nd, in answer to that pathetically obvious question… I'm gonna carve me a witch." The last left his lips, as he opened the door with his flesh hand, and calmly barreled out of the car, grabbing his Remington boomstick from the seat of the car.

"But- but- that's suicide!" Rebecca's cry went thrown away with a reply of "Only if I die, 'Becca. Wish me luck" from Ash. He readied the boomstick with only one hand, the full weight of it comforting in his hand, as the mean red-and-green machine once again shot toward them.

But just as he came close to tightening the trigger, he heard another door of the Olds open and slam shut. Ash looked back, seeing Jill with her own Beretta handgun. "Don't say anything; I'm helping you whether you like it or not." Ash's only retort was a sly grin as they faced back toward the nightmare transport came ever closer. "Ready?", Ash yelled, seeing Jill nod in reply next to him.

"FIRE!"

The deep boom of the Remington rang out in the empty late-night sky, matched with the slightly higher whine of the Beretta, as buckshot and semi-jacketed rounds alike slammed into the engine and the front tires. Pieces of rubber erupted from the now-defunct tires, and an ever-growing plume of smoke rose from the front part of the car. As the car trundled in front of them, Ash gave an almighty leap onto the hood of the car, while Jill ran to the driver's side to keep the demon in.

Tugging on the starter cord of his chainsaw, Ash was soon ready to stop, chop, and roll, but as the smoke cleared, the demon pulled out a grappling hook gun and shot it at Ash. The hook's cord wrapped around Ash's arms and midsection, a stunned look crossing Ash's face as it happened. Jill, switching the gun to her left hand, swung the right down toward the collarbone of the once-beautiful woman, only to have it grabbed, then shoved back with such force that Jill took a backflip and landed hard on her frontside.

But just then, the cord on Demon Ada's grappling gun snapped, Ash managing to sever it with his chainsaw and freeing himself from the cord's bond. With an unearthly yell of "I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!", the demon leapt into the air, hands spread into claw-like formations. Ash, with a pathetically disappointed look on his face, retorted, "Make mine a double", as another load of buckshot peppered itself onto the demon's face as it fell.

Anyone else would think that that work was done, but Ash knew better. Spinning the shotgun around in his hand before finally holstering it, he revved up the chainsaw before letting it rip on Ada's demon-ridden body, bright red blood spurting from wherever the chainsaw cut into, splashing onto the roads and the grassy ditch beside the road. Some of it even left red, slimy streamers on Ash and Jill's shoes. But at long last, the work was done…almost.  
Ash threw his car keys to Jill, explaining, "There's a shovel in the trunk. Get it out for me." In about 5 minutes, the shovel was thrown at Ash's feet. With his chainsaw back in its hip holster, and his gauntlet hand put back, Ash unearthed a small patch of land in the grassy ditch. The shovel gnawed at the ground as it was shoved in, came away with dirt, and then threw it aside. Then, with help from Jill, Ash carried the demon into the dug-up patch before burying it again, the bones now lying 6 feet below the ground.

At long last, a haphazard cross, made from 2 abandoned tree limbs lying nearby, was shoved into the earth a few inches from where Ada's now-discombobulated body lay. As the cross became embedded into the earth, lightning struck as a thunderbolt rumbled off in the distance. What a perfect night for rampaging evil.

But somehow, they found time to gather their thoughts before their inevitable battle with whatever lay ahead. Jill sat down on the lip of the ditch, her arms folded on her legs as she sat, looking out at the horizon. She couldn't believe what had happened over these last couple of days: Krueger returning, breaking into reality, killing Chris…

These thoughts were obliterated from her mind as she heard the grass slightly crunch under the weight of Ash Williams, now sitting next to her; the gritty look on his face softened just a touch. His blue-green eyes kept a caring gaze on her saddened face as he asked, a caring note in the question, "You doing ok, Jill?" Jill broke the gaze that they held on each other, looking down at the ground.  
"Well…there's been deep scars cast over these last few years…some of them worse than others…" She trailed off unable to say anymore. Ash finished the thought for her, replying, "But this one was one of the few that hurt the most, if not the worst." Jill nodded miserably before laying her head on Ash's shoulder as he slipped a soothing arm around her shoulders, holding her there for awhile as he rubbed his flesh hand around her shoulders. He then leaned in toward the side of her face, leaving a lingering – and comforting to the point of something more – kiss on her cheek. At this show of affection, Jill put her hand softly on her own cheek, and then looked at Ash with a small smile on her face.

Then, before she could get a hold on what she was doing, her left hand went to his face's right side, her lips mashed onto his, surprising them both. Ash took rein of this surprise by closing his gaped eyes, and encircling her in his arms, taking care to be gentle with Jill with his gauntlet hand.

The kiss – a joyful, yet short eternity – lingered there, in the very air that was slowly becoming thick with a soft rain. Bright green eyes looked into slightly darkened ocean-blue for another moment more before they both turned toward the horizon, still in each other's arms, as Jill said softly, "I'm…sorry about that."

Ash looked at her, slightly perplexed, before a short, easy grin crossed his face as he replied, "Nah, you shouldn't be. Under the circumstances, it's completely understandable."

Jill turned her gaze on him once again, shooting off, "You know, those are the 2 biggest words I've ever heard you say." Ash, still grinning, shot back, "There's more words I can say that'd really get you off guard." She nestled closer to his warm bulk, wondering coyly, "Like what?" Ash looked her square in the eye, and uttered those few words…

"Give me some sugar, baby."


	12. The Son of Rage, Love and 100 Maniacs

Chapter 12

The Son of Rage and Love…and 100 Maniacs

From his seated vantage point in the Olds Delta 88, Jacob looked out at the place where he knew Ash and Jill were, doing God knew what in that ditch. It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine, what with the slight noises he could hear from beyond the closed window. And yet he still found it unbelievable that it could happen under these circumstances. At the mere idea of it, he let out a short chuckle, shaking his head.

The slight heaving motion of his chest woke Rebecca, gently resting on Jacob's shoulder. They all knew this wasn't the right time, but the temptation to take it easy, if only for a few moments, was just too great. "Hey, everything alright?" Jacob looked down into her eyes, replying, "Yeah…I just think what Ash and Jill are into is kinda humorous to even ponder."

Rebecca sat upright, looking back at him with a mock-indignant look on her face. "Why, you are so rude. Personally, I think it's kind of cute, them being together." Jacob turned away with a just-as-mocking scoff, retorting, "Oh, sure, a former S.T.A.R.S. member with the Ash-hole, what could be better?" This was meant with laughter that rang through the whole car, along with slight chuckles from the 2 Kennedys in the back seat, sitting in each others' arms. "Jake, just because you had to put up with him while fighting Freddy in the first place…." Leon trailed off mockingly, countered by a slight jab in the ribs by Angela.

"Yeah, and he mentored you in the Secret Service afterwards", Jacob came back, "So who's the one with the problem?" Making sure that Rebecca was too busy laughing, Leon flipped him the bird comedically, then looked back down at Angela, who kissed him softly with a smile. Leon gave her a short hug, his arm around her shoulders.

This short reverie was broken by Rebecca's yell of 'Hey!' from the middle of the front seat. They all looked in her direction to see that the mean, red-and-green machine that was previously sitting abandoned in the road, was completely gone. They all looked at the spot where it laid, expecting it to show up once again, but nothing happened that would indicate anything they were hoping for. Jacob simply took one glance out the window, and then said, "Don't waste your sight. If Krueger's making this happen, odds are nothing's going to change…I know that from an awfully personal way."

Everyone looked at Jacob Johnson like they'd never seen him before waiting for him to continue…

_He tried to take me over when I was still in my mother's womb. At that point, he'd already killed my father, my mother's boyfriend Dan Jordan. Krueger thought that if he could turn me over, he could get his powers back, then pass them off when he was no longer thought worthy of them. He had me in his claws for awhile. But thanks to his mother, and mine, Krueger was defeated…for that moment anyway. _

_18 years later, he came back into my life, preparing to take over the world with no kids left alive. My mother sacrificed herself to give me her powers, because she was already suffering from a terminal illness from those powers. Me and Ash led our group, called the Nightmare Warriors, against him and Jason Voorhees, serving as a Deadite generally under him. /i_

"But wait", Leon interjected softly , and Jacob turned to look him straight in the eye. It was then that Leon truly noticed the darkness that haunted Jacob's eyes ever since then. " You said Krueger's mother helped you too…why?" What Jacob said next, no one was prepared for.

"Because she didn't deserve to be caught in this whole circle. She was the first victim here. She worked as a nun in a convent that, ironically enough, contained an insane asylum, and then became Westin Hills Psychiatric.

_On Christmas Eve night many years ago, Amanda Krueger was locked in that insane asylum accidentally by vacation-eager guard. For those short few days, she was brutally raped by the 100 maniacs that resided there in that very wing. She barely made it out alive, but that experience continued to haunt her. _

_When the guards came back, the first person they found was Amanda Krueger, her nun's habit dirty and torn in many places, barely alive, and quite pregnant. But as soon as Fred Krueger was born, he was put up for adoption and taken in by a Mr. Underwood. The abusive guardian he was, he unknowingly taught Freddy the secret of pain, with help from Freddy's self-abuse. _

_Freddy turned out to be like his 100 maniac fathers from the very beginning. His first kill was Underwood himself. A few years later, he ended up killing his wife after she found out of his history killing children in Springwood. His daughter knew too, but she was taken in by the Borroughs and became a psychiatrist. Even worse, was that she soon followed the same path as her father. _

_But when Krueger was put on trial, he was released because some idiot didn't sign the search warrant correctly. In response, those angry parents torched the boiler room Freddy lived at. But that didn't stop him, all thanks to those Deadite demons who gave him the dream powers that let him reign over our dreams…_

No one dared to speak for a few minutes after Jacob was done. Everyone was gripping the leather of the front seats wherever they could from the tension. Finally, all hands let go, and a whisper of 'Dear God…' from Angela escaped her lips. "I know, Ang", Jacob replied. "This world is a dangerous place. But even in the deepest wars, life still goes on as more and more people die."

Everyone looked down at the ground, pondering Jacob's philosophical words, and finding no hidden meanings behind them besides the obvious: they were at their own war with Krueger.

"This is one war we have to win, then, isn't it", Rebecca threw out into the tense air, and no one else could deny it. Jacob gently put his arm around her, as Leon and Angela braced themselves as well for whatever fate may throw at them because of Krueger. "We will win this, Becca", Jacob answered back.

Leon let another small joking smile cross his face, as he leaned forward. "Besides…you still owe her a date, Jacob. Not much will happen if one of you dies, now, will it?"


	13. If Nightmares Were Torture

Chapter 13

If Nightmares Were Torture…

Just as glares and half-hearted laughs were about to disperse throughout the car, the driver's and left back door opened up to reveal Ash and Jill, both with anxious smiles on their faces, and a light bit of sweat on their foreheads. They both nonchalantly got into their respective seats, Jill leaning up to give Ash a light kiss on the neck and a whisper of "…thanks."

But just as Ash was turning the key to the Delta, the ground underneath them started to rumble and shake, the occupants of the car near to being thrown around wildly by the sudden tremor.  
"Dear God…what the hell's going on!" Ash's yell through the now-violently trembling car shook everyone to the core more than the quake was doing. With very careful skill, Jill carefully looked out the window to see the street, a light brown patch on it now, was growing smaller and smaller. A split-second later, Jill realized that the car was being lifted up into the air. "Buckle up! We're going for a ride!" This yell was followed by everyone buckling up as tightly as they could, as 2 knives the size of steel girders bashed through the front windshield of the Delta.

It was only then that they could hear the insane laughter that sent a sheer heart attack of insanity through the car, and they knew that they just might be meeting the end. All of this flashed through their minds, as the car was thrown up at least a few thousand feet into the air from the ground.

Faces pressed into the windows, scared looks on their faces, none of them believing. Thankfully, stock was taken and Leon gave a rough shout through the car, barking out orders that were taken in shocked stride. "As soon as the car begins to fall, everybody roll down the windows and jum!"  
"Leon, do you have any idea what you're thinking?", Rebecca shouted at him as the car began to ascend slower and slower. Leon looked Rebecca as square in the eye as he could, responding, "When the car lands, odds are there won't be much left for people to know this was a car. As long as we're out of it, we might have a chance."

"He's right", Ash and Jacob, incredibly, said at the exact same time, which was met by a hard, tough stare between the 2. It was as if they couldn't believe they found something to agree on…like they'd finally found a common niche that seemed to hammer down on them…just as the car began to do to the wasted ground below. "EVERYBODY, JUMP!"

Windows were rolled down, doors were opened, and the 6 human forms were throwing themselves out of the car, waiting for the free fall to end. In what, no one knew…just like no one knew of the other 2 human forms and the car that were falling above and beside them.

The freewheeling feeling of the fall soared through those who were falling, but amazingly, they hit the ground with not-quite-lethal force.

Ash hit the ground on his hands and feet, rolling onto his back. Leon, Jacob, and Rebecca feel to the ground with their feet, then fell to their sides with the uncontrollable momentum they had. Angela and Jill, on the other hand, actually tried to land as agile as they could, with dirty and painful results.

As soon as Ash hit the ground, he immediately shifted gracelessly to his feet, his boomstick now ready to blast at whoever – or whatever – might be waiting for them. When he saw nothing but his 5 comrades, his Delta, and an open stretch of road, he slid his shotgun back into his holster. But it was only then that he noticed the shadow that was slowly becoming thicker and darker around the huddled forms of Jill and Angela.

When he looked up, he saw another car plowing through the air with all the force of an atom bomb, ready to crush the two women underneath all of its metal fury. "Damn it, isn't one car enough!", Ash half-grumbled, half-yelled as he ran toward the two young women, a gut instinct telling him that he wouldn't be able to get to them in time. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Leon, sans bomber jacket, sprinting at top speed toward Ash's own destination.

Just as he got into the border of the shadow that rained down on Angela and Jill, out of sheer unnerved instinct, he threw both of his arms to the sky in an attempt to catch the one-car rainfall.

But what came next was the most surprising sight that any of them could comprehend…unless you count what that merciless dream demon Freddy could do.

Rebecca had just gotten to her feet before hefting Jacob back onto his, just now starting to calm down after the insane adrenalin rush. But just when she thought it was all over for now, the next thing she heard was a piercing creaking of metal and groans of effort and pain alike. She turned to face where Jill and Angela had landed, but what she saw she almost couldn't believe.

Ash was holding up what looked like a Dodge Charger vehicle with nothing but his bare flesh-and-metal hands, with the 2 women and Leon barely scrambling out from under it as Ash tried to gently set it down.

"Okay, um…how'd you do that?" Jill asked incredulously as 2 more human forms crawled out of the car. Ash looked back at Jill with a face full of sweat, heat, and effort as he answered, "Just a little magic trick I picked up in Dearborn awhile back. Speaking of which, how'd Jack and Jill get here?" At the last, he shot an apprehensive look toward the two new people, who turned out to be Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside.

"Save it, Little Boy Blue", Claire fired back, supporting Steve's shaky form as she finished, "Maybe you should blow your horn again; the cow's gotten loose." This garnered a slightly muffled snicker from Steve and a wise-cracking smile from Ash, as everyone else gathered around the 3. But it was only after they'd gotten together in one place by Steve's Charger and Ash's Olds that they heard a familiar song…

_**biOne…two…Freddy's coming for you…/i**_

"Perfect timing, Freddy", Rebecca heard Jacob mutter under his breath as she drew her Beretta from her hip holster. From behind her, she saw Claire pull out a fully-loaded Glock 17 and Steve with a pair of what looked like gold-plated Lugers.

_**biThree…four…better lock your door…/i**_

Leon pulled out his Kendo-customized 9mm pistol from his holster as Angela readied her MP5 machine gun, both getting themselves into an almost classical style battle pose: they each wrapped one arm around each others' waists, their guns hanging in their outside hands at their sides. Meanwhile, Ash was slowly removing his gauntlet hand, readying his chainsaw for his right wrist.

_**biFive…six…grab your crucifix…/i **_

Jacob looked around in all directions that he could, hoping that he could at least sense a glimpse of Krueger, but what he seemed to be looking for, he didn't find. But then the 8 warriors all heard the same thing, sensed it almost outside their body and soul…what sounded 4 giant claws ripping across the sky above and to the right of them, moving fast.

_**biSeven…eight…gonna stay up late…nine…ten…/i**_

The same instinct took all of them almost at once, and they moved their heads to follow the direction the noise was going in, but this instinct was stopped by the one common sight that now beheld them all: a decrepit, rusted road sign that was still barely legible…uRACCOON CITY/POPULATION: 100,000/u

As if to only compound the horror that swept through them, they could hear Freddy's ghostly voice whisper through their very souls…

_**bi…your nightmare's back again./i**_


End file.
